Is a Product Strategy Always Neccessary?

Do you always need a product strategy before you start? Not really. You need a vision and a definite set of objectives to guide you, but I think it's more important to get started than to plan extensively. Why? well... When you're just starting, with no budget, no experience, no users, and nothing to lose, strategy is, in fact, a luxury. What the hell are you strategizing for? Your startup doesn't need to be perfect now. You don't need a 20-minute, step-by-step document with all the sexy numbers and the perfect business model. How did you get the numbers to begin with? Exactly. Instead, what you need, is an idea. That's it. A good idea that - solves a problem and - People are willing to pay for it. Figuring out these two can be easy, but considering that many startups give up at this point, I say it's not. If you've figured that out, the next thing to nail down is how to get the product to them. If you build it they won't all come at once; your product needs to be in their mails and feeds (consistently) before they even give it a try. You may write a product strategy immediately after the product has been validated because, at this point, you're certain that the market need is enough to pour your attention into it. Come to think of it, an MVP is, in itself, a strategy tool. Planning a product before you've built a minimum viable is a wild guess. You have no current data to prove it, no users - nothing to measure success and failure against. An MVP gives you all that, and more.